The unchained mage, p.22
The Unchained Mage, page 22
The first wards prickled against her mind, whispering that she was overconfident, inexperienced, unable to deal with this daunting complexity. She pushed the intrusive thoughts aside and, wielding her concentration like a scalpel, she unpicked the silvery thread. Cut loose from its anchoring symbols, it frayed, and the feelings of inadequacy evaporated with it.
Layer by layer, she lifted the remaining wards, working down to the curses beneath.
The two curses were more intricate by far, master works in their own right. She studied them, but could see no way to release one without activating the other.
She took a deep breath. The smell of frying bacon invaded her focus, bringing with it the little noises of the campsite: the oxen chewing their grain ration, the gryphon scratching its healing wing, Ashe clattering pans. Distractions she couldn’t afford right now. She drew in her focus, shutting out everything but mage-sight.
Since she didn’t know what they did, it didn’t matter which curse she released. She picked one at random.
The threads unravelled, dissolving into the void, and the remaining curse triggered. Cold tingled over her skin.
For a minute she did nothing, trying to analyse what the curse had done to her. Her threads of fate seemed unchanged. The binding vow to her father had released when she defeated Daelean and took his belt. During the fight, she’d broken the curse laid by the journal, though other links to her father remained, black and twisted, shrivelled like shed snakeskin. Her connection to Ashe was growing stronger, as expected.
She had sensed a loss though, a passing coldness like a cloud blocking the sun, making her shiver. But she felt no pain, no weakness. If anything, she felt stronger and less anxious. Whatever it had done, it was too late to worry. She could only observe and mitigate the effect if it became a problem.
She turned her attention back to the box. With the wards and curses gone, the curse-lock was clearer. By mage-sight, its thread encompassed the whole box, woven so tight it entangled the finest particles down to the limit of her awareness.
Magic had been worked into the metal, probably during manufacture using a technique lost to modern mages. The maker—maybe Leer-Fyth herself—would have keyed the lock to a word, or gesture, or the sound of her voice. Without the key, opening the box would trigger the curse-lock, and the unravelling thread would convert the metal to energy. The resulting explosion would destroy the box and contents, not to mention herself, Ashe, and a portion of the surrounding country.
She didn’t know how to break the lock and perhaps she shouldn’t try. Her father expected her to hand over the box intact. She doubted he could deal with the curse-lock either.
But she had promised the Sisters she would make the attempt. Besides, Inuinor had forfeited his right to the treasure when he’d tried to chain her to his will with the journal. She didn’t want him to have it, and she didn’t want to give up on the challenge of the box. What had Ashe said, in the tomb?
What one man builds, another can understand.
Leer-Fyth had locked the box and it was made to unlock. She just had to find the way. Perhaps the solution was not to break the lock, but to trick it. She sunk her awareness into the box’s physical structure.
A mechanism held it closed, a complexity of tight-fitting metal parts. With growing excitement, she began to see how it worked. Her hands trembled and she took a minute to breathe and calm herself. A mistake now would be fatal.
Once she was calm, she again focused and re-checked her analysis.
The closed box lid held down a spring. When the lid opened, it released the spring, which expanded, forcing up a metal pin. The pin’s movement triggered the curse-lock.
She wanted to laugh. How like a mage to create a complex, powerful magic defence, tied to a physical device which any child could bypass. Of course, it was possible an illusion concealed the true working and she was about to kill herself. It was a sobering thought.
But if her understanding was correct, she could open the box safely. If she was wrong, she’d be dead before she knew it.
She dug in her pocket and only then recalled that Ashe had lost her penknife. ‘Ashe, do you have a small knife, or a tool with a thin blade?’
He got up from the campfire and wandered over, the gryphon padding at his heels like a dog.
‘Sure.’ He handed her a knife. ‘What are you doing?’
The knife blade looked thin enough. It was greasy with bacon fat, but that shouldn’t make any difference.
She wiped her fingers on her robe. ‘Opening this box, I hope.’
Maybe she should warn him they might both be killed in the next minute. But why worry him? Knowing would do him no good.
The gryphon hissed at her.
‘Please take that animal away. I need to concentrate.’
‘I want to see what’s in the box.’
‘I’ll show you when it’s safe.’
Ashe chivvied the gryphon away and tethered her to the wagon. Maia settled down with the box.
She slid the point of the blade between the box and the lid. The blade lodged against the pin. She held her breath as she forced the knife point in to hold the pin in place.
Gripping the knife hard, she popped open the lid.
Nothing happened. To her mage-sight, the curse-lock remained quiescent. She held the knife steady. The least movement might set it off.
Inside the box lay a stack of thin gold sheets, densely inscribed in magian runes. Her hand holding the knife quivered with tension. She scooped the sheets out of the box and closed the lid.
This was the other danger point. She withdrew the blade fraction by fraction, wriggling the knife point free until the lid fastened with a click she felt rather than heard, and the knife was out.
She sagged, shaking, tasting blood. She’d bitten her lip and not even noticed. Her cramped hand still gripped the knife, and beside her on the grass lay the stack of gold sheets, Leer-Fyth’s precious treasure. After the years of study, the dangers of the tomb, the battle for mastery, she had her prize. She’d beaten the greatest sorceress of the Golden Age. She’d won.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
‘WE’RE STUCK,’ ASHE said.
‘I know. What are you going to do about it?’ Maia’s wet hair straggled over her shoulders. She crossed her arms.
Ashe blinked the rain from his eyes. They had left Fairhill that morning. At the bottom of a hill, the wagon had run into deep mud and sunk to the axles. The oxen couldn’t shift it. He’d pushed. He’d wedged planks under the wheels. Nothing helped. The wagon was well and truly stuck.
Only four days of travel from here to Kingskeep, but they were going nowhere.
He kicked the rear wheel. ‘You mean, what are we going to do about it?’
‘You’re the wagoneer. If you’d listened to me, we’d have stayed in Fairhill until the rain stopped.’
‘It could rain for a week. And you hate Fairhill.’
Since the night Maia opened the box, they’d had four days of solid rain. Fairhill had been a sea of churned mud, overcrowded with travellers waiting for a break in the weather.
‘Whereas this is so much better.’ She waved her hands at the muddy road and rolling green pasture, all drenched in sheets of rain.
‘It’s not my fault,’ Ashe said.
Hero snorted and rolled his eyes. Maia glared.
Ashe scowled back. ‘There’s nothing I can do. We need help. Someone will pass before long.’
He splashed through puddles to the rear of the wagon. The road climbing toward Fairhill was deserted. Nothing moved but the grey sheep dotting the green fields. He climbed into the wagon bed. At least the canvas cover kept off the worst of the rain, though he was so wet already it hardly mattered. The gryphon hissed at him. He sat down.
Maia joined him, sitting on the other side of the wagon. ‘That’s your answer to everything, isn’t it? Something will turn up.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘What do you think it means?’
They stared at each other, and the silence between them grew hard and cold, until Ashe had to look away. Rain drummed on the canvas. The puddle around the wagon was becoming a lake.
‘I’ll pay you back,’ he said quietly, ‘for the Healer.’
‘With what, exactly?’
‘When my business starts making money—’
‘Are you still on that stupid idea? Ashe, every mage you ever met has lied to you, cheated you, or tried to kill you.’
‘Except you,’ he said. ‘I know it won’t be easy—’
‘They’ll chew you up and spit you out for cat meat. You’re just an uman. You have no idea what you’re doing.’
‘Just an uman? Is that how you think of me?’
‘I didn’t mean—’ She peered out at the rain. ‘Is that a wagon?’
Ashe scrambled to his feet. It wasn’t a wagon coming over the hill, but a caravan, the type favoured by itinerant tinker families, and a large one too, drawn by four oxen.
He jumped into the road and waved his arms, though it wasn’t necessary. The big caravan would have to leave the road to pass them, and that was unlikely. Uman helped each other. And besides, uman were congenitally nosy and rarely passed up a chance to gossip.
The caravan was painted in broad red and yellow stripes, an unusually garish colour scheme for uman. Ashe eyed the driver, but bundled in a cloak against the rain, she could have been anyone.
The driver halted the caravan behind the bogged-down wagon. ‘Got some trouble, friend?’
Ashe spread his arms. ‘Stuck. We should have steered round. I didn’t know it would be so soft.’
The woman grunted. ‘They don’t call it Boggy Bottom for nothing.’
She swung down from the caravan and splashed through the puddles to the wagon. Tucking her cloak up to keep it from the mud, she crouched to inspect the wheels and axles.
She scratched her head. ‘Hmm. I think we can get you moving.’ She turned to the caravan and yelled, ‘Drum!’
The large uman who stepped down from the caravan was indeed Drum, followed by three younger men who might have been his brothers or cousins.
‘Ho there,’ Drum bellowed. ‘Young Alf, isn’t it? Got a spot of bother?’
‘Ashe.’ Ashe smiled. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you here.’
‘We run from Kingskeep to Fairhill, play there for a spell, then back to Kingskeep and the north.’
‘They’re proper stuck,’ his wagoneer said. ‘I’ll hitch our lead pair in front of theirs, but we’ll need folk to lift.’
‘What are you waiting for then? Get to it.’
The woman trudged off to fetch the oxen.
Drum clapped Ashe on the shoulder. ‘Hah. Not to worry, we’ll soon have you sorted.’
With Maia watching from the roadside, the men from the caravan assembled at the wagon tail.
‘This is my brother Cole, cousin Raif, brother-in-law Pall.’ Drum gestured to the woman, who was unhitching their lead oxen. ‘The sour one is Bara.’
They exchanged smiles and nods.
‘Hurry up, Bara. The day’s only getting wetter,’ Drum shouted.
Bara scowled as she led the oxen past. Ashe trotted after her, thinking he should supervise, but Bara had her pair hitched in moments. Hero tossed his head, unhappy at being superseded by strangers. Ashe checked the linkage.
‘Happy?’ Bara said.
‘Uh. Yes. Fine.’
Ashe patted Hero’s flank and trudged back to the wagon tail.
‘Ready?’ Drum said. ‘Take hold then.’
All the men grabbed portions of the wagon tail and braced themselves as best they could on the slippery road. Ashe joined them.
‘On my count,’ Drum roared. ‘One! Two! Gee up, thar!’
Ashe strained against the dead weight. Pain stabbed his side as the healing muscle and bone complained. With a sucking noise, the rear wheels lifted an inch, two inches. The wagon jerked forward while Ashe’s feet slid back. He dropped to his knees. The other men were in various states of collapse, panting.
The wagon settled into the mud, having travelled perhaps a foot from where it had started.
‘One more and we’ll have it,’ Drum said. ‘Got levers?’
Ashe staggered to his feet. He rubbed his side. ‘There are planks in the wagon. Should we unload the cargo?’
Cole groaned. ‘Now he says it.’
Drum patted Ashe’s back. ‘My boy, that would be an excellent idea. I should have thought of it myself.’
Ashe and Cole climbed into the wagon. Red eyes glowed from the gloom and the gryphon hissed.
‘What in Krail’s name is that?’ Cole said.
‘Oh. Sorry, I should have warned you. It’s all right. She won’t hurt you.’ Ashe crossed his fingers. ‘It’s just my gryphon.’
‘Your what?’
Ashe slid a plank from where it was stowed and passed it down to Drum and Raif. ‘She’s quite tame. Here, shift those crates.’
The gryphon bristled, tail lashing from side to side. Her splinted wing struck the side of the wagon.
‘Deon’s blood,’ Cole said. ‘Quite tame?’
‘Easy, girl.’ Ashe approached her with his hand outstretched. She snapped at him. ‘There, there. Settle down. Ssh.’
She sat on her haunches, still looking grumpy. He didn’t risk getting closer. In this mood, she’d as soon bite him as anyone else.
He and Cole shifted the wagon’s heaviest contents to the rear, where the others lifted the crates down and piled them at the roadside.
‘What about that?’ Cole gestured to the gryphon.
‘She doesn’t weigh much,’ Ashe said. ‘Best leave her alone.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
They dropped to the muddy road.
Drum rubbed his hands together. ‘Right. Let’s give it another go, shall we?’
Cole and Raif selected planks and wedged them under the rear wheels. Ashe and the others took up their stations again, ready to lift.
‘On my count!’ Drum bellowed. ‘One, Two, Gee-haw.’
The oxen heaved, the men strained. The wagon wheels squelched forward and sunk again a foot further on. Left behind, the men lost their grips. Cole slipped and fell full length in the mud, to the amusement of his relations.
‘Nearly there,’ Drum announced. ‘The next one will do it.’
‘You said that last time,’ Cole said.
‘Quit whining.’
The men picked up the wet planks and resumed their positions. Their faces were determined but there was tiredness in the set of their shoulders. Each attempt to move the wagon was draining.
Ashe took a deep breath. His chest ached dully.
‘Ready!’ Drum shouted. ‘Set. One, Two, Gee up!’
Bara yelled at the oxen. The men heaved on the planks, faces turning red. A vein pulsed in Drum’s neck. Cole’s eyes bulged as if about to pop from his head.
Ashe heaved. His boots sunk through the mud to the road beneath.
‘She’s going!’ Drum yelled. ‘Keep it up, you lazy devils!’
The wagon lurched. Ashe fought to keep his feet under him, to keep lifting and pushing as the wagon bounced forward, leaving him stumbling in its wake.
Drum hauled him to his feet. ‘Hah. I told you it would be easy.’
‘It’s out,’ Ashe said. Blood pounded in his head. His arms and legs trembled. The wagon rolled through the puddle and halted on the drier uphill section of road. ‘Thank you.’
‘Oh, no thanks needed,’ Drum said. ‘We’re all uman here.’
Cole looked down at his mud-soaked clothes. ‘Some thanks wouldn’t go amiss.’
‘Travel along with us today and give us your company for dinner,’ Drum said. ‘You can tell us about that animal. That must be a story worth hearing.’
Since the wagon and caravan were taking the same road, there was no practical way to avoid their company even if hadn’t been rude to refuse. They trundled on in convoy.
‘You shouldn’t have done that.’ Maia said. ‘Are your ribs all right?’
Ashe didn’t look at her. His side ached a little, but he didn’t think it was anything major. Besides, he couldn’t have stood idle while other people shifted his wagon for him. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Who are these people anyway?’ Maia said.
The painted caravan fairly glowed against the sodden fields and lowering sky. Small children hanging off the side waved and pulled faces.
‘Entertainers,’ Ashe said.
‘Oh. They’re uman then?’
‘Yes.’ Ashe shifted on the wooden seat. ‘Though… there’s uman and there’s uman.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Some are more respectable than others.’ He felt heat rising to his face. This wasn’t a topic uman normally discussed, especially with non-uman.
‘And these aren’t respectable?’
‘No.’
Maia was silent for a long moment. ‘Respectable or not, they got us out of a hole.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
THEY DROVE FOR the rest of the day in grey drizzle and sullen silence. Ashe nursed his anger, waiting for Maia to say something so he could snap at her. Maia sat like a statue, her gaze fixed on the horizon.
Late in the afternoon, the caravan pulled into a campsite. Ashe halted the wagon, climbed down, and stretched. Women emerged from the caravan to light a campfire. Children charged past him, swinging water buckets.
Drum strolled up, thumbs hooked in his belt. ‘So Ashe, you don’t introduce me to your friend?’
‘This is Maia, master mage. My employer.’
Drum bowed formally, one master to another, and Maia returned the courtesy.
‘What became of your poor cousin,’ Drum said. ‘The young man with the face?’
‘He stayed in Eastwall. There was a girl.’
‘Hah, a girl, I see. Now, you must show me this animal. I’m most curious.’
The noise and bustle of so many people had her unsettled, but the gryphon jumped down from the wagon tail when Ashe called her and followed at his heels.
